Before the Fall

On a foggy summer night, 11 people - 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter - depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later the unthinkable happens: The plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs - the painter - and a four-year-old boy who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.

The Kitchen House: A Novel

Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Dave Eggers scored a worldwide phenomenon with this memoir that topped national best-seller lists and has since become a staple for summer reading and book clubs. A compelling voice for Generation X, Eggers hererecounts his early 20s, caring for his younger brother after their parents’ unexpected deaths and his endeavors in a variety of media.

BoneMan's Daughters

A Texas serial killer called BoneMan is on the loose, choosing young girls as his prey, His signature: myriad broken bones that torture and kill - but never puncture. In a story that is devaststing in its skill and suspense, - Ted Dekker brings to bear his ability to terrify and compel in BoneMan's Daughters.

Astray

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, antebellum Louisiana to the Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present.

Testimony: A Novel

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices - those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal - that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

The Dalai Lama inspired millions around the world with his wisdom and compassion in The Art of Happiness. Now, in The Essence of Happiness, further moving insights from His Holiness are here. Offering sage advice on defeating day-to-day depression, anxiety, anger, jealousy, and other emotions that get in the way of true happiness, here are transforming reflections on how to overcome suffering and obstacles to create a fulfilled, joyous life.

Austenland: A Novel

Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.

The Circle

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity.

Dracula [Audible Edition]

The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is trying to live a quiet life. The last thing her husband wants is for her to go running off on another dangerous mission to help illegal refugees. But when Nina's estranged friend, Karin, leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, and begs her to take care of its contents, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous case yet.

Ashes: Ashes Trilogy, Book 1

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device and killing billions. Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom, a young soldier, and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it's now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Aser Tolentino says:"Another Readable Story About the End of the World"

Little Women

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the free-thinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work."

How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age

Celebrating the 75 anniversary of the original landmark bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People, comes an up-to-the-minute adaptation of Carnegie’s timeless prescriptions for the digital age. Dale Carnegie’s principles have endured for nearly a century. Since its original publication in 1936, his timeless classic How to Win Friends and Influence People has gone on to sell 15 million copies. Now, introducing new listeners to Carnegie’s words of wisdom, comes How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, a new guide for a new era.

Barkskins: A Novel

In the late 18th century, Rene Sel, an illiterate woodsman, makes his way from Northern France to New France to seek a living. Bound to a feudal lord, a seigneur, for three years in exchange for land, he suffers extraordinary hardship, always in awe of the forest he is charged with cleaning. Rene marries an Indian healer with children already, and they have more, mixing the blood of two cultures. Proulx tells the stories of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of two lineages, the Sels and the Duquets.

Among Others

Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.

Untwine

Giselle Boyer and her identical twin, Isabelle, are as close as sisters can be, even as their family seems to be unraveling. Then the Boyers are caught in a car crash that will shatter everyone's world forever. Giselle wakes up in the hospital, injured and unable to speak or move. Trapped in the prison of her own body, Giselle must revisit her past in order to understand how the people closest to her - her friends; her parents; and above all Isabelle, her twin - have shaped and defined her. Will she allow her love for her family and friends to lead her to recovery?

Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga

In 1904 Ota Benga, a young Congolese "pygmy" - a person of petite stature - arrived from central Africa and was featured in an anthropology exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair. Two years later the New York Zoological Gardens displayed him in its Monkey House, caging the slight 103-pound, 4-foot 11-inch tall man with an orangutan. The attraction became an international sensation, drawing thousands of New Yorkers and commanding headlines across the nation and in Europe.

A Desperate Fortune

For nearly 300 years, the cryptic journal of Mary Dundas has kept its secrets. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas travels to Paris to crack the cipher.... Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing - for freedom, for adventure, for the family she lost. When fate opens the door, Mary dares to set her foot on a path far more surprising and dangerous than she ever could have dreamed.

A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination

A groundbreaking, explosive account of the Kennedy assassination that will rewrite the history of the 20th century's most controversial murder investigation. The questions have haunted our nation for half a century: Was the President killed by a single gunman? Was Lee Harvey Oswald part of a conspiracy? Did the Warren Commission discover the whole truth of what happened on November 22, 1963? Philip Shenon, a veteran investigative journalist who spent most of his career at The New York Times, finally provides many of the answers.

The American Heiress: A Novel

Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the 20th century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

Within the Shadows

In this spine-tingling thriller, mystery author Andrew Wilson is blessed with a life most would envy, but he has no one to share it with. And then he meets Mika Woods, a woman of otherworldly beauty. After a night of passion, Andrew regrets his decision and wants to take things slow. But slow is not Mika's speed, and soon Andrew is combating the advances of an obsessed, supernatural woman.

Behind Closed Doors

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth; she has charm and elegance. He's a dedicated attorney who has never lost a case; she is a flawless homemaker, a masterful gardener and cook, and dotes on her disabled younger sister. Though they are still newlyweds, they seem to have it all. You might not want to like them, but you do. You're hopelessly charmed by the ease and comfort of their home, by the graciousness of the dinner parties they throw. You’d like to get to know Grace better.

You Shall Know Our Velocity

In his first novel, Dave Eggers has written a moving and hilarious tale of two friends who fly around the world trying to give away a lot of money and free themselves from a profound loss. It reminds us once again what an important, necessary talent Dave Eggers is.

Publisher's Summary

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

What the Critics Say

"Powerful.... Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel--there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense--are astonishing.... Donoghue brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity...will keep readers rapt." (Publishers Weekly)

"Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days." (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry)

"This is a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses - psychological, sociological, political. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live." (The New York Times Book Review)

I loved this book, and listened to it a second time with my mother. It is a book that wants to be shared. My memories of my early years with her were evoked by this book. The narrators, especially "Jack", were fantastic. Initially it appears to be primarily a story about a child--who adapts and flourishes in a truly horrible situation, and then adjusts to an entirely new experience. It makes believable, in a very personal way, children's ability to tolerate and grow as long as they are loved, no matter what the impoverished circumstances they are born to. However, the more profound story is that of Jack's mother, whose adaptation to abuse, deprivation, and loneliness was much more difficult because she was an adult when it began, and became a mother soon thereafter. The gift of her commitment to her child's safe and happy life, under terrible circumstances, is remarkable. The book deserves the accolades it has received, and the narration here is a worthy presentation of it.

The little kid voice is excruitiating to listen to for hours on end. The book is very good, very worth reading but I would definitely buy it in print. It's tortuous to listen to the exaggerated baby voice of the 5-year-old.

I bought it because it was one of the best rated books on Audible. Unfortunately, the other reviewers seem to be assessing just the book and not the narration.

I tried, but I couldn't like this book. Might have been better to read it. Relentlessly precocious childlike voices annoy me. It's an unusual story, hence two credits, but I was so aware of the adult logic and sophistication behind the cuteness of Jacks narration, that it felt hopelessly mawkish to me.
Normally I wouldn't comment if I didn't like the book, but reviews often drive my selection, and if you don't like movies with wise little kids speaking quasi-adult dialog,give it a pass.

This seems like a creative story idea, which I am sure will likely make a fantastic movie...but this audiobook presentation is unlistenable. I barely got an hour or two into this and had to give up, as most of it is narrated in a little kid's voice as events are described with the thought and speech patterns of a young child (sometimes, very unconvincingly)...after a short while it began to grate on my nerves to such a degree I don't think I will ever revisit this. It is like being stuck in the car with someone else's chatty 5 year old...who you begin to realize is describing some horrific abuse. I can't imagine how they chose this presentation...who could possibly listen to this for hours and hours?!?!

I would not recommend listening to it (reasons explained below). I would recommend reading it. It is a fascinating, horrifying tale.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked that the story was told primarily from the child's perspective.

How could the performance have been better?

The performers voices, tone, and intensity were inappropriate in nearly all cases. As much as I liked that the story was primarily from the his perspective, Jack could have made his observations without the cloying sense of wonderment at all things. Ma sounded too old for 26 years. Grandma sounded 90 instead of 59. Old Nick had too "normal" a voice. He should have sounded more sinister. I was anxious to finish the book to be done with those voices.

The voice chosen as the narrator. I couldn't stand it. I understand that it is a child that is narrating the book, but whoever they chose for the narrator is AWFUL!!! So sad that I bought and couldn't listen to any of it :-(

What was one of the most memorable moments of Room?

I couldn't listen to the book because I hated the voice of the narrator

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

ANYONE else!!!

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Room?

I never got to listen to it because I couldn't stand the narrator's voice

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to listen to this book because my wife had read the story and loved it. That is why I gave the story 5 stars although I never actually listened to the book because of what I stated above. I work a lot and in my car a lot so that is why I use audibooks. May be one day I can READ this book, but I CANNOT listen to it. The narrator's voice is like finger nails on a chalkboard

In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, he says that if we were all prisoners chained in a cave, we would think shadows cast in the cave by the surface world were reality, and that if we were let out of the cave to see the surface world we wouldn't believe it. I wonder if Emma Donoghue decided to retell the allegory from the point of view of a five year old.

I confess that at first I didn't care for the 5 year old's narrator, but I let that go because the story is so well written. It does not for a second insult the intelligence. Imagine a book written from a science fiction perspective about what life is like on our planet. And the person telling you is five. And he has passing knowledge of the world but only through what is shown on television. This is that book.

Like The Help, this book uses several narrators which was a great choice. I am only at the halfway mark, but unless the end is horribly disappointing, I am halfway to one of the best books I've downloaded this year.

This story had so much potential, but had so many flaws. The narration during first quarter of the book was like listening to a 3 year old with bad grammar for hours. The only reason that I continued the book is because I was held hostage on an airplane and was able to fast-forward. Jack was able to go from reading at an adult level to talking like a 2 year old. The controversy over breast feeding was also handled very poorly by the author. It seemed like she just wanted you to react to the comments. I have listened to over 100 audiobooks and this one is at the bottom.

A school administrator and avid reader and listener of books. At least an hour of every day is spent in the car, and that's where the bulk of my listening is done. I tend to listen to books on "faster" mode so I can get through more books!

At times the story is difficult and heart-wrenching, and other times it is hopeful and satisfying. Sometimes I felt physically ill while learning of Ma & Jack's experiences. And despite all that turmoil, it was a truly amazing story, although not for everyone. The story, told through 5 year old Jack, is about Jack and his Ma who are held hostage in an 11x11 room. Just the premise of the story will rule out some readers, and that is ok: you need to be able to hear of their difficulties, their triumphs and their failures.

This is one of the best audio books I've ever listened to. Different narrators voice those in the story, and when you listen to Jack, you really believe you are listening to a five year old. Stunning.

Although I understand how people may be moved by the situation of a innocent character born into a horrible captivity, I found the tale and narration tedious. Presenting the story from the point of view of a child denies the opportunity to meaningfully analyze the impact of the setting. Also, I did not like the main character's voice being that of a child. It conveyed a flat, emotionless take on a truly sad story. After such wonderful reviews, I was disappointed.